Distinguished Service Cross awarded to Commander Henry James Bray RNR. Henry James Bray was born in Shrewsbury in 1882 and qualified as a Merchant Navy captain in 1910. From 1910-14 he was master of the four-masted barque ‘Holt Hill’. During the First World War Bray served as a lieutenant in the Royal Naval Reserve and in 1916, while commanding the armed trawler ‘Searanger’, helped to sink the German submarine ‘U-74’ which was on a mine-laying expedition in the Firth of Forth. Bray was awarded the DSC for this action. He was promoted to Acting Lieutenant Commander in 1919.

The medal is in the form of a plain silver cross pattee, convexed. In the centre of the obverse is the Royal Cypher. On the reverse it is hallmarked. It is suspended from a blue ribbon with a central white stripe. The medal is mounted on a bar with six others: the British War Medal (MED1595), 1914-15 Star (MED1594), Mercantile Marine War Medal 1914-18 (MED1598), Victory Medal 1914-18 (MED1596), Al Valore Militare (MED1597) and the Long Service, Special Constabulary 1943 (MED1599).